Mabel
"Mabel" is the first episode of the third season of Better Call Saul and the twenty-first episode of the series altogether. Summary Teaser In present-day Omaha, "Gene" carries on with his job at the local Cinnabon. During a lunch break, Gene sees a shoplifter hide inside a photo booth. He reluctantly tips off pursuing police officers to the shoplifter's location, resulting in an arrest. However, as the shoplifter is led away, Gene is overcome with emotion and shouts at him to say nothing and hire a lawyer. When he returns to work, Gene faints. BCS 3x01 01.png BCS 3x01 02.png BCS 3x01 03.png Act I Following Jimmy's confession to forging the Mesa Verde documents, Chuck hides the tape recorder in a desk drawer while Jimmy phones Howard. When he returns, Jimmy helps Chuck remove the foil covering his living room. When Jimmy finds an old copy of The Adventures of Mabel -- a book Chuck read to him when he was young -- the two brothers briefly reminisce about their childhood. However, Chuck cuts the nostalgia short and tells Jimmy that he will neither forgive nor forget what he has done. "And you will pay," Chuck states firmly. Jimmy returns to Kim's office to give her an update on Chuck, and remarks that he had forgotten what it felt like to have his brother not hate him. Meanwhile, Chuck invites Howard to his house and plays him the tape of Jimmy's confession. While Howard is livid, he reminds Chuck that the tape cannot be legally used as evidence against Jimmy, nor can it be used to win Mesa Verde back to HHM. Chuck suggests that he has something else in mind. Act II BCS 3x01 05.png BCS 3x01 06.png BCS 3x01 07.png After finding the mysterious message on his windshield in the desert, Mike understands that his hit on Hector has been completely compromised and Mike himself is most likely in danger. He drives at break-neck speeds to flee the reserve in his station wagon. His first intuition is that someone has placed a tracking device on his vehicle. Not easily able to spot it, he stops in a junkyard and begins to meticulously disassemble the vehicle. After hours of unsuccessful searching with the junkyard about to close, Mike has an epiphany: he takes apart the wagon's fuel cap and finds a tracking device inside. At home, he finds and examines another device hidden in his Chrysler sedan, recording its ID number. Mike contacts Caldera and tasks him with finding information about the device. Act III At Wexler and McGill, Captain Bauer shows up and angrily confronts Jimmy about fraudulently gaining access to his airbase to shoot his commercial. After momentarily cracking, Jimmy defiantly refuses Bauer's demand to take it off the air. Bauer warns Jimmy that smart little guys like him, who do not play straight, always end up paying. Before leaving Jimmy and Kim's Offices, he yells at Jimmy's other clients: "A lawyer you can trust, my ass!" Night at the parking booth. Mike is working his regular shift, until he is convinced that he is not being watched. Quietly shutting down the booth, Mike covertly removes the bugged fuel cap from his Chrysler and hides it in one of the overpass pylons. Confident that his tail has been shaken, Mike drives off into the night. Act III At a railway warehouse, Mike meets up with Caldera, who is upset about being called in the middle of the night. Mike requests a tracking device and monitor identical to the one used to bug his vehicle. Caldera agrees, but warns Mike he will need time and extra money for this job. He also admonishes Mike to keep to "business hours" when contacting him. At Mesa Verde, Kim presents the updated Mesa Verde work to Paige, who praises her instantly on the quality of the documents. After hearing Paige's disgust at Chuck's "incompetence" and arrogance, however, a conflicted Kim asks to hang onto the corrected Mesa Verde documents for one more night. Visibly struggling with her professional ethics, Kim obsesses over a single punctuation mark on her final report to Mesa Verde, reluctant to submit it and profit from Jimmy's fraud. Act IV During a visit to Chuck's house, Ernesto brings special batteries in addition to the usual products at the request of Chuck. Feigning not to be able to change the batteries of the tape recorder on which he fraudulently registered Jimmy's confession, due to his medical condition, he asked Ernesto to do so. When Ernesto finished changing the batteries, the tape recorder, whose play button seems to have been accidentally turned on, begins reading a small passage of Jimmy's confession, sufficiently explicit for Ernesto to grasp the gravity of what he has just heard. Chuck pressures Ernesto to never tell anyone on the pretext of confidentiality. Destabilized, Ernesto hastenes to finish putting away the food he had to bring to Chuck and left precipitately. Chuck seems pleased to have managed what appears to be the first step in his machiavellian plan against Jimmy. BCS 3x01 10.png BCS 3x01 11.png BCS 3x01 12.png At Mike's home, Mike has begun his own move against the owner of the tracking device in his Chrysler. Having obtained his replacement tracking device from Caldera, Mike switches the original device in the Chrysler with his own, and then proceeds to drain the original's battery by wiring it to a transistor radio, while Mike waits next to his window. Eventually, someone arrives to replace the "drained" tracker with a fresh one, unwittingly giving Mike the means to follow them. After arming himself and removing the fuel cap containing the newly-planted tracker from his Chrysler, Mike drives into the night and begins his pursuit. Credits Main Cast * Bob Odenkirk as Jimmy McGill * Jonathan Banks as Mike Ehrmantraut * Rhea Seehorn as Kim Wexler * Patrick Fabian as Howard Hamlin * Michael Mando as Nacho Varga (credit only) * Michael McKean as Chuck McGill Guest Starring * Cara Pifko as Paige Novick * Brendan Fehr as Bauer * Joe DeRosa as Caldera * Brandon K. Hampton as Ernesto Co-Starring * Raquel Pino as Raquel * Samantha Benavides as Sam * Dylan Riley Snyder as Young Skeev * Jon Summers as Police Officer * Nathaniel Augustson as Mall Security Guard * Forrie Smith as Junkyard Owner * Teddy Eggleston as Mrs. Siemasko * Mary Woods as Jenn Siemasko * Alaina Warren Zachary as Mrs. VanKamp * Audra Charity as Greta Uncredited * Richard Beal as Shopper Official Photos better-call-saul-episode-301-jimmy-odenkirk-2-935.jpg Better-call-saul-episode-301-jimmy-odenkirk-935.jpg Better-call-saul-episode-301-chuck-mckean-2-935.jpg Better-call-saul-episode-301-chuck-mckean-935.jpg Better-call-saul-episode-301-jimmy-odenkirk-5-935.jpg Better-call-saul-episode-301-mike-banks-3-935.jpg Better-call-saul-episode-301-jimmy-odenkirk-3-935.jpg Better-call-saul-episode-301-mike-banks-935.jpg Better-call-saul-episode-301-jimmy-odenkirk-4-935.jpg Better-call-saul-episode-301-mike-banks-2-935.jpg Trivia *Jimmy's elderly female client, when listing flowers, includes Lily of the Valley, the plant Walt used to poison Brock in Breaking Bad. *A shot of Mike hiding the tracker on his car before going for a drive directly mirrors a similar shot of Gus doing the same in Season 4 of Breaking Bad. *Another scene directly mirroring Breaking Bad is when "Gene" faints in the teaser similar to Walter White fainting in Pilot. Memorable Quotes Featured Music *'"Sugar Town" '''by Nancy Sinatra (Played during the "Gene" montage at the beginning of the episode.) *'"Can't Leave the Night"' by BadBadNotGood *'"Memory"' by Morrie Morrison Orchestra *'"Hurry Sundown"' by Little Richard *'"Alfonso Muskedunder"''' by Todd Terje es:Mabel Category:Better Call Saul episodes Category:Season 3 episodes (Better Call Saul)